Fishing affects marine ecosystems by reducing target populations, catching or killing non-target animals, changing food-web relationships, and sometimes damaging habitats. The scale and type of impact depend on the species, fishing gear, location, intensity, and management. Fishing also supplies food and supports livelihoods, so its effects are not identical across fisheries.
What are the main ecological effects of fishing?
Fishing changes ecosystems through several pathways. A fishery may affect a harvested population directly, while also affecting other species through bycatch, changes to predator and prey populations, or contact between gear and habitat.
| Pathway | What happens | What to assess |
|---|---|---|
| Target-species removal | Harvest reduces the abundance of the population being caught. | Whether the stock can replenish at the rate it is being fished. |
| Bycatch | Fishing gear catches or kills animals that are not the intended target; some mortality may go unobserved. | Which species are affected, including protected animals, and whether they survive encounters. |
| Food-web changes | Removing predators, prey, or other ecologically important species can alter relationships among organisms. | The harvested species’ role in the local food web. |
| Habitat effects | Some fishing activities can physically damage habitats, and corals or sponges may also be caught as bycatch. | Whether gear contacts reefs, seagrass, the seafloor, or other sensitive habitat. |
These pathways can overlap, but they are not interchangeable: a stock assessment, for example, does not by itself describe every effect on biodiversity or habitat.
How can fishing deplete a population?
Fishing mortality reduces the abundance of harvested animals. When fishing pressure is too high for a population to replenish, its stock can fall below a biological threshold and be classified as overfished. “Overfishing” describes a fishing rate that is too high; “overfished” describes the resulting stock condition. The precise assessment or legal definitions vary by jurisdiction.
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FAO’s 2025 global assessment covered 2,570 individual marine fish stocks. It classified 35.5 percent as overfished and 64.5 percent as fished within biologically sustainable levels. These percentages describe the assessed stocks—not all marine species, all ocean biomass, or ecosystem health as a whole. FAO’s 2025 assessment
What is bycatch, and why does it matter?
NOAA Fisheries defines bycatch for its purposes as “discarded catch of marine species and unobserved mortality due to a direct encounter with fishing vessels and gear.” Bycatch is therefore broader than fish that are caught and thrown back: it can include animals that are hooked or entangled, as well as deaths that are not observed. Fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds, corals, and sponges can all be affected. NOAA Fisheries’ explanation of bycatch
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- Mortality among non-target fish can add pressure to populations that the fishery does not intend to catch.
- Injuries or deaths among protected species can hinder population recovery.
- Bycatch can remove prey or predators from food webs, and catching habitat-forming corals or sponges can damage habitat.
Targeted measures can reduce bycatch in a particular fishery. NOAA Fisheries reports that dolphin bycatch in the U.S. yellowfin tuna fishery has fallen by more than 99 percent through measures enabled by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and related agreements. That figure is an example for this fishery, not a worldwide estimate of bycatch trends. NOAA Fisheries’ bycatch information
How does fishing change food webs and habitats?
Food webs
Removing animals that play important ecological roles can affect more than the harvested population. NOAA’s sanctuary material notes that removing top predators such as groupers, snappers, sharks, and jacks may disrupt food webs. The effects depend on the local ecosystem and which species are being removed; a species’ commercial value alone does not show how important it is ecologically. NOAA’s overview of fishing impacts
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Reefs and other habitats
Some fishing activities and gear can physically harm coral reefs, seagrass beds, and other habitats. Fishing may also affect reefs indirectly when it removes species that help shape reef food webs. Neither outcome is universal: the target species, fishing intensity, gear, location, and governance all matter. NOAA Ocean Service on overfishing and coral reefs
What do global stock figures show—and what don’t they show?
FAO’s 2025 assessment also reported that fisheries landings from biologically sustainable stocks represented 77.2 percent of global landings by production. This is a different measure from the share of assessed stocks that are sustainable: production weighting gives greater influence to higher-volume fisheries, while the stock percentage counts assessed stocks. Neither figure is a direct measure of all biodiversity or ecosystem impacts. FAO’s 2025 global stock assessment
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Results differ by region. FAO reported that 92.7 percent of stocks in the Northeast Pacific were sustainably fished. That regional result shows that stock status is not uniform and that better outcomes are possible; it does not mean the region is free of bycatch, habitat damage, or other ecological effects. FAO’s regional findings
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How can management reduce ecological harm?
Management can address different pathways with measures such as catch limits, monitoring, changes to fishing practices or gear, and enforcement. Whether those measures work depends on the fishery and the strength of the institutions responsible for applying them. FAO Director-General QU Dongyu called effective management “the most powerful tool for conserving fisheries resources” in the agency’s 2025 assessment release. FAO’s 2025 assessment release
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There are also examples of improvement in particular settings. A 2024 FAO report on high-seas deep-sea fisheries says guidelines adopted in 2008 led to improved environmental protection and stock stabilization, while noting that continued attention is needed for long-term conservation. FAO’s 2024 report on deep-sea fisheries management
How should you compare the impacts of different fisheries?
There is no supported universal ranking of fishing methods by total ecological harm. A useful comparison is specific to a fishery and location:
- Target and stock status: Which population is harvested, and is it sustainably fished or overfished?
- Bycatch: Which non-target animals are caught or killed, including protected species?
- Habitat interaction: Does the gear contact reefs, seagrass, the seafloor, corals, or sponges?
- Food-web role: Is the target or bycatch an important predator, prey species, or habitat-forming organism?
- Management and monitoring: Are limits, monitoring, gear measures, and enforcement in place and effective?
- Place and scale: Which ecosystem is affected, and how much fishing occurs there?
Those questions make it possible to distinguish a stock’s status from other ecological effects. A fishery can have sustainable assessed stocks and still require attention to bycatch or habitat interactions.
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